ARCHER: Absolutely insane for its sheer scale. We think about Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday. If you add the most recent totals from all of those holidays, you get about 30 percent of the total Singles Day for Alibaba.

HU: Singles Day wasn't always a bankable holiday. It was created by Chinese university students as a sort of anti-Valentine's Day.

ARCHER: November 11 or 11, 11, one, one, one, one - lots of singles.

HU: But it didn't take long for Alibaba to co-opt the holiday for its own purposes.

SIEGEL: Singles Day may be a celebration of singlehood, but China's middle-class families are helping Alibaba go to the bank. The country has more than 500 million middle-class consumers, and that number is only expected to grow.

HU: While sales on Singles Day surpass big U.S. sales, Seth Archer says Alibaba might have learned something from Amazon.

ARCHER: If you think of Amazon during its Prime Day, you had to have an Amazon Prime account before you could take part in any of the deals. It's the same sort of thing for Alibaba.

HU: He says $25 billion is impressive. The other goal turns Singles Day buyers into committed year-round customers.